Culture...alive or dead?

talk
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I was thinking about Scotland and it’s culture the other day when I thought our culture is alive and kicking. My countries culture would be Robert Burns works and his night(we have Robert Burns night here), the bagpipes, marching band, the kilt, haggis, whisky, the edinburgh festival, our friendliness (rivalled only by the Irish) and then I began to think, is this really what my countries culture is or is it just things people think of when they think of Scotland.

Anyway I was curious do you think your nations culture is alive or dead and if you thinks it’s alive, what do you think it is?

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Australia’s culture seems to be kicking along nicely. Too bad I hate it so much it makes me want to throw up. Drink beer, cook a snag (sausage) on the barby, play cricket and use words like “mate” and “shiela”. The true Aussie bogan. They would sooner listen to ACDC than mozart.

I could be stereotyping, I mean not all Australians are like that. I’m certainly not. But I can garentee that’s how most of the world views us. But the thing is it IS how a lot of Australians are, especially in rural areas such as where I live. The culture in the city seems to me to be just a mix of all the other countries, so this “bogan” ideal must be Australia’s true culture.

It’s a pity seeing as half of the local footy (AFL not soccer) team were hospitalised in the grand final last weekend due to the other team’s strategy being “let’s go out and bash the **** through these guys, then we’re sure to win”. They did win. I wouldnt be suprised if they also had a few “beers and a snag” prior to the game either.

[/rant]

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Well, I think it all depends on how you look at it and how specific your question is.

I was born and live in Seattle, but my dad was born in London. He’s lived over here for almost thirty years but he’s still as cockney as one could possibly be. Most of my family lives across the pond and, through my time there, specifically in and around London; the culture is as alive as any other place. In saying that, though, it also has such a complex mixture of cultural influences that it’s difficult to give a definitive answer. What I need to mention, however, is that I’m totally nuts about castles, medieval monstrosities and England’s colorful history in general. So, I guess you could discount my opinion altogether. Anyroad, their society (like so many others) is so homogenized that it’s hard to say…

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i agree, aussie culture (at least the stereotype) is embarresing, but i think at least in the city it is evolving into a much more developed, multi-culture i guess you could call it, realising that a significant percentage of aussies were not born in australia, and even more have only been here for one generation

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I think multicuturalism is the way of the future. If we stick to our own little “sections” of culture then people won’t evolve beyond what’s acceptable in their society. I friend of mine from school went to Germany for a year and came back a completely different person. Mostly because of the restrictions she had in place here and the lack of them over there. But again that could all boil down to her family rather than the specific culture.

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culture is most definately alive and kicking in London. I think we are debating whether our concept of nationality is being diluted as opposed to culture…

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billy I see your point about London culture, but I was wondering about your nations culture? What do you think it is cause I’m beginning to think that a country’s culture and it’s nationality or image of nationality is the same thing.

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davidh, i kinda agree with what you’re saying about multiculturalism being the way of the future, but i don’t necessarily think that’s a good thing. In some ways, when we start to expand beyond our own little section of culture, they all start to blend together. For example, i can see that the australian culture today is more mixed (confused?) than what it used to be…even though i wasn’t alive ages ago.

i think that unless an effort is made to preserve aspects of unique cultures, everyone will eventually become vanilla flavoured - only slight differences, because everyone’s kinda smoooshed the different social and cultural ideas together.

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Based on this definition of culture from dictionary.com:

The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
you cannot really have a group of people without a culture. For example in America (where many say we have no culture) the culture is and has been for many years that of attempted and most often successful economic expansion. As a people we try to better ourselves, our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, our cities, our states and by that our nation economically. We attempt to get our kids a better education than our own in an attempt to allow them the best opportuitiy to make more money and have more stuff than we did. Now, I know there are those people that say they don’t like stuff…but if you notice they all have stuff and keep gaining more stuff. We produce art (ie Flash sites) to sell products and sevices to make us money to buy more stuff. We write songs to add to our advertising (ie Flash sites) to sell more products and services to make more money.

The American culture is alive and well, and paying for itself :smiley:

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my theory…

all nations consist of a lot of small communities, each with their own culture.

England has London, the geordies, the cornish, etc etc…

we have enough in common as communities for a ‘nationality’ to develop… this extends beyond ‘culture’ through to language, political beliefs and religion

now where i see a problem occuring is that too many immigrants live in England who are not furthering this identity we have… while a geordie may have different view on life to a londoner, they still have enough common interests to avert a ‘civil war’.

a lot of immigrants dont even speak our naional language and so without communication how can they exist as part of our nation?? while they add diversity to our culture, they create a mix of nationalities which is not good.

multi-culturalism is good, multi nationalism is bad IMO

for instance, my parents have polish builders working for them who work harder than english but are cheaper. they are economic migrants. they cant speak english. this is significant because if you see south afrian nurses, polish builders, indian newsagent etc… NONE of whom have a desire to be a part of the British Identity (and by this language has to be a minimum requirement) then they serve to dilute not only our nationality but our British culture

now I dont want to sound like a hard right… i am up for integration but it is widely recognised that Britain is closest to losing its nationality because of this and other factors. We dont even celebratre our national day?? i expect most foreigners find that hard to believe…imagine an irishman not celebrating st patricks day??

in my post is ‘random’ it interesting to see that one person named our national dish as ‘curry’

this is what is so great about Britain, we integrate other cultures so well, but i fear we are about to push it to far. my dissertation is about how design can further national identity and provide a bridge between culture and identity…

i am debating whether like a product brand, a national identity has to develop beyond a flag and the image of a british bulldog to cater for the make up of our country

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That’s offensive. I hate it when people are labelled

You can’t expect them to give up their own culture. Likewise, you wouldn’t give up english culture if you moved to a foreign country.

By contributing economically to it

That’s not the fault of immigrants is it?

That’s an assumption. Besides, what’s more important, culture or human welfare?

You need to be more accepting

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i think you need to travel a bit to realise how accepting the british are

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I agree that American culture is partly based on money, but in your mouth, it seems obsessivly greedy. Culture is not really about money (or economics - isn’t there a Department of Economy and another Department of Cultures?) imo. It’s about how people think as a group, and I’m not going to accept that Americans only think about money.

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Let’s not forget that we’re talking about culture, not economic status.
Getting back to my post, I was essentially saying that London thrives on cultural diversity (and how I’m a nut). However, my main point is just that: If London has such a varied cultural backdrop, then it’s pretty difficult to answer RabBell’s original question because, well, of course England and London’s culture isn’t dead. That’s ridiculous. But, are we talking about English heritage or are we talking about the influence of other cultures on British society?

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Of course of culture is alive. What we eat, wear, our fashion sense, the way we talk and interact, it changes as time passes by.